Stuffed honeynut squash with an herby pomegranate salad

Fancy enough for a holiday, easy enough for a weeknight

Now that Halloween is officially over (I’m really not a Halloween person, so this couldn’t have come soon enough), I fear that I’m going to be shifting full force into holiday mode.

Appetizers! Side dishes! Cocktails! Mains! All of it! In! Abundance!

It’s the most wonderful time of year and I plan to spend it like I do every year — indulging in everything holiday-related from the very first day of November until it starts to feel a little sad to have my Christmas tree up (sometime after January 6th, because I’m Armenian). Which is why I’m kicking it off today with a recipe that you could definitely serve for a holiday meal because it’s fancy and impressive, but is also really low effort. Meaning you can make it… tonight?

Tell me more

We’re roasting up honeynut squash and stuffing them with a mixture of ground meat, onions, pine nuts, and spices, and topping it all with a fresh pomegranate and herb salad. It’s the type of meal that has it all — sweet, savory, soft, crunchy, hot, cold. What more could you want!!

The stuffing and salad come together while the squash roasts, so it requires minimal time spent in the kitchen, plus is easy to prep ahead in case you’re having a par-tay and want to spend even less time away from the festivities. Plus, easy to scale!

Before we start

• Honeynut squash are just smaller butternut squash, with more concentrated flavors. They taste absolutely delicious when roasted — so sweet! — and I think make for perfect little individual-sized portions. The ones I was working with in this recipe were just around one-third of a pound each, and two stuffed halves were quite filling.

• You can find honeynut squash at most farmers markets this time of year, and lots of grocery stores carry them now too. I got mine at Whole Foods. If you can’t find them, you can use butternut squash or acorn squash. The skins of all three get tender when roasted, so you don’t have to worry about peeling.

• The stuffing mixture for this is inspired by the stuffing mixture in sini kufteh, or oven-baked kufteh. It’s a mix of ground beef, onions, pine nuts or walnuts, and some warming spices. Feel free to sub in whatever ground meat you prefer (lamb would be so good here), though keep in mind that turkey or chicken will result in a drier stuffing.

The recipe

Serves: 3

Cook time: 45 minutes